Pentium Pro Processor System Architecture

A Second Edition of this book is now available "This series of books is truly an important part of my library. They are consistently accurate. I would recommend them to anyone doing hardware design or support, as well as to any developers who write low-level system code."
Paula Tomlinson
Windows Developer's Journal

Pentium Pro Processor System Architecture describes the hardware and software characteristics of the Pentium Pro processor itself, the bus protocol it uses to communicate with the system, and the overall machine architecture.

Written for computer hardware and software engineers, this book details the internal architecture of the processor, providing insight into how it translates legacy x86 code into RISC instructions, executes them out-of-order, and then reassembles the result to match the original program flow. In detailing the processor's internal operations, the book reveals why the processor generates various transaction types, and how it watches bus traffic generated by other entities to ensure cache consistency. The bus protocol is described in detail in a logical, building-block manner. In addition, Pentium Pro Processor System Architecture covers:

• relationship of the Pentium Pro to other processors, PCI bridges, and memory
• purpose of the MTRR registers
• detailed description of the data, code, and L2 caches
• processor's power-on configuration
• selection of bootstrap processor
• transaction deferral
• instruction and register set enhancements
• paging enhancements
• VM86 mode enhancements
• Machine Check Architecture
• Performance Monitoring and the Time Stamp
• MMX register and instruction set
• overview of the Intel 450KX, 450GX, and 440FX chipsets

If you design or test hardware or software that involves the Pentium Pro processor, Pentium Pro Processor System Architecture is an essential, time-saving tool.

The PC System Architecture Series is a crisply written and comprehensive set of guides to the most important PC hardware standards. Each title is designed to illustrate the relationship between the software and hardware and explains thoroughly the architecture, features, and operations of systems built using one particular type of chip or hardware specification.

MindShare, Inc. is one of the leading technical training companies in the computer industry, providing innovative courses for dozens of companies, including Intel, IBM, and Compaq.

Tom Shanley is one of the world's foremost authorities on PC system architecture and has personally trained thousands of engineers in hardware and software design.

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